ReachTEL: 53-47 and 54-46 to Labor

Disappointing results for the government from the first two voting intention measures after the budget, despite strong support for the bank and Medicare levies.

Sky News reports the first post-budget poll, from ReachTEL, has Labor leading 53-47. After exclusion of the 10.6% undecided, the primary vote results are Liberal 34.2%, Nationals 3.8%, Labor 34.1%, One Nation 11.0% and Greens 10.9%. Nonetheless, the bank levy appears to have gone down well, recording 39.8% strong support, 22.3% support, 22% neutral, 8.3% oppose, 7.9% strongly oppose, and the Medicare levy appears to have been well received as tax hikes go, with 48.2% in favour and 34.1% opposed. Nonetheless, 51.6% rated that the budget would make them worse off, 10.8% better off, and 37.6% about the same. I believe the poll was conducted last night; can’t help you with sample size at this point (UPDATE: correct on the first count, 2300 on the latter).

UPDATE: It seems a second, completely different ReachTEL poll was commissioned by Seven News and conducted on the same evening, and this one had Labor’s two-party lead at 54-46. However, no primary votes are provided, which is significant because a closer look at the numbers from the Sky News poll suggests the two-party result reflects a strong flow of respondent-allocated preferences to Labor – applying flows from last year’s federal election, the result would be 51.5-48.5. The Seven poll had similar supplementary questions and got similar answers: the bank levy recorded 60% approval and 18% disapproval, the Medicare increase 51% approval and 28% disapproval, but the budget overall was rated good or very good by only 29%, poor or very poor by 33%, and average by the rest. No sample size to relate at this point.

UPDATE 2: Here’s the regular weekly BludgerTrack update, which incorporates only the latest Essential Research results and not these two from ReachTEL.

Author: William Bowe

William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.

1,058 comments on “ReachTEL: 53-47 and 54-46 to Labor”

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  1. On the sealed indictment –

    Seth Abramson ✔ @SethAbramson
    (2) The FISA court doesn’t convene grand juries, either. I said it before, I’ll say it again: don’t get your legal news from non-attorneys.

  2. Jackol, scab is not a personal trait it is a political viewpoint. In the context of a journalist for the AFR attacking the Labor party it is no more colourful than many other words and the response to it has been disproportionate, particularly in light of numerous ad hominem attacks which do not exercise you at all.

  3. Trump’s ‘prime the pump’ comment was totally LOLworthy. I’m definitely going to have to mea culpa on my assessment that he isn’t dumb. Evidence is suggesting he’s a complete ignoramus!
    http://www.economist.com/Trumptranscript

    Even Katharine Murphy claims she is stunned into speechlessness.

    Katharine Murphy
    17 mins ·
    Not often I’m speechless. In between firing the FBI director and threatening him and his other eyebrow raising activities this week – Donald Trump was interviewed by The Economist. We usually produce transcripts at Guardian Australia when we do big interviews. Not sure The Economist does routinely, but producing this transcript was a master stroke. Here’s a link and an excerpt. The sequence of the conversation in which Trump claims to have invented the Keynesian concept of pump priming is my personal favourite, but there are more laugh out loud moments.

  4. “On the subject of burning coal I would like to see some more upfront statements of the obvious”

    Only the impotent are pure.

  5. The financial illiteracy to think that a tax goes up on banks but they shouldn’t or won’t pass it on is staggering. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of business knows they will raise rates, fees, drop dividends or issue redundancies. Or a little of each. If the view is so what to the above options that’s one thing, but the treasurer keeps talking like it should have no impact. So callow…

    The financial illiteracy to think that interest rates go down on banks but they should or will pass it on is staggering. Anyone with an ounce of understanding of business knows they will raise rates, fees, drop dividends or issue redundancies. Or a little of each. If the view is so what to the above options that’s one thing, but the treasurer keeps talking like it should have some impact. So callow…

    Though tbf to PVO he at least has a fairly realistic view of this government and how it operates which is startling for a writer at the GG

  6. Boerwar

    I was an Albo supporter due to my BOO HISS of Shorten’s union. Dudded my union and then me in days gone by, sold out to the bosses to get site coverage. After that I supported Shorten because it soon became apparent that he is the luckiest man alive. Tones and Turnbull had the most appalling run of bad luck since Shorten took over, every day now for years. 🙂

    Still say though “Vote 1 Greg Combet”

  7. CTar1 Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 4:23 pm
    On the sealed indictment –

    “Seth Abramson ✔ @SethAbramson
    (2) The FISA court doesn’t convene grand juries, either. I said it before, I’ll say it again: don’t get your legal news from non-attorneys.”

    **************************************
    I see you one Seth Abramson ……. and raise you one Civil Rights Lawyer Andrew Laufer …

    Andrew C Laufer, Esq‏
    @lauferlaw

    Replying to @SethAbramson @jadedview69 and 2 others

    Seth yet again you offer nothing but shade. They vote true bill which means indict. And FISA material is used all the time by GJ to indict

    Batlle of the on-line Lawyers in progress …

  8. Michelle Obama has made her strongest political intervention since leaving the White House, stating bluntly at a health conference: “Think about why someone is OK with your kids eating crap.”

    One of the former first lady’s signature legacies was an effort to reduce childhood obesity. Earlier this month, Donald Trump’s administration froze regulations that would cut sodium and increase whole grains served in school meals.

    “We have a lot more work to do, for sure, but we’ve got to make sure we don’t let anybody take us back because the question is, where are we going back to?” Obama told a Partnership for a Healthier America summit in Washington.

    “This is where you really have to look at motives, you know. You have to stop and think: why don’t you want our kids to have good food at school? What is wrong with you?”

    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/may/12/michelle-obama-trump-school-lunches-childhood-obesity?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=225913&subid=22688624&CMP=ema_632

  9. DTF
    What’s ‘pure’ about stating a fact universally acknowledged by everyone except a few reactionary Trogs?

  10. “Vote 1 Greg Combet”
    Just reminds me of the number of good Labor people who retired/ became disillusioned by R/G/R
    The peripheral damage to the party was appalling

  11. I support Shorten because the Liberal Party are reactionary #@$&wits and economic ideologists driven by greed.

  12. monica lynagh @ #828 Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 3:53 pm

    bemused
    There were and still are plenty like me, but the system I left was borked by one reorganisation too many, a total nightmare.That audit was many years ago now and I don’t know the current Chief Psychiatrist. Next time I catch up with some of my former colleagues, I’ll sound them out.

    There seemed to me to be a rather curious and perhaps unhealthy rotation of senior people between DHS and KPMG.

  13. I’ve been getting caught up on the coverage of what’s going on in France in the financial review today. It seems like Macrons simultabeously in an enviable and unenviable position building a political party from scratch. If I were him I’d be looking for a lot of candidates from industries that don’t usually produce politicians, nurses, teachers, scientists, that sort of thing. Western democracy has long had a problem with not representing an accurate cross-section of society. I hope he can pull it off, but the chances look slim.

    Journalist describe his political ideology as ‘centrist’. Does that mean the same thing as it doesn’t in Australia? Would Macron be closer in viewpoint to Labor or the Coalition?

  14. Boerwar
    re: mental health services.
    It is both. Demand outstrips supply, particularly in areas of high population growth such as the north and west of Melbourne, for example.
    The last reorganisation the service I worked in was a desperate attempt to try and spread human resources differently to meet demand. Unfortunately from my experience and from the reports of friends and colleagues, it was an unmitigated failure.
    Code greys (psychiatric emergencies) in the main community base went from maybe one a week to several a day; staff sick and stress leave blew out; staff turnover accelerated; reportable deaths increased.
    Personally, I don’t know how they can let this go on, as it’s over 2 years down the track.

  15. P
    I would have supported Combet.
    I would have accepted Albo had that been the verdict of the Party… but with the reservation that he would have been less likely to be successful than Shorten.
    IMHO, Shorten is far from perfect. But he got rid of Abbott and is doing a good job on Turnbull.

  16. Don’t get me wrong. I have a Shorten supporter since most of the Labor Left and ALL of the Greens went funny cos Albo did not get up.

    I know. My issue is that your criticisms of him and the BIR are the sort of ‘not pure, therefore same-same’ nonsense you would usually be getting stuck right into a Green for.

    Shorten is playing the game beautifully. The fact the smarties in the media can’t see it and just assign his position to luck is illustrative of just how subtly he has played the Libs. Your complaints therefore go too far. He is addressing all the issues you want to see addressed, but doing it in a way that is inclusive of the centre he needs to capture in order to even get to first base.

    He needs to be careful with his language. For better or worse, coming out and advocating against coal too strongly could very easily bring the government back into the game. Don’t for a second assume these idiots will 100% destroy themselves. They will always have the structural advantages of the Right of plenty of money and a media to pump their tyres.

    Shorten can’t afford a misstep and those who wish to see some progressive reform need to accept that without bringing those less enthused about that idea on board we get reactionary nonsense.

  17. Oakeshott Country

    Treasured memories are listening to Combet during his visits to WA in dead of night or wee small hours in a tent on the picket line during the Waterfront Dispute . Watching , listening as this bookish looking guy I had not been aware of held all these hard arskes in his thrall. Vote 1 Combet.

  18. ratsak:

    PvO might be a Liberal, but at least he gets stuck into the party when it’s deserved. Too few of his ilk do so, esp his colleagues at the Australian.

  19. Blanket Criticism:

    I believe Macron wants 50% of his candidated to have never held office before. I think he also specified that nobody who has served three or more terms in their national parliament is allowed either. I think he however said he was not going to challenge the former PM Manuel Vals (Socialists) in his seat as a sign of respect.

  20. DtF –

    in light of numerous ad hominem attacks which do not exercise you at all

    I have spoken up on this issue with other commenters before. I don’t do it all the time because I’m not here to be the overseer of commenting correctness. I will call out particularly egregious examples, as I did today and have done in the past.

    If you see examples that you think should be called out, go for your life.

    I don’t want to see PB descend into an endless stream of namecalling (“Fruit Tingle” “Mega Opinion of Himself”) and invective. That’s not analysis. It’s not helping to illuminate the political process. It doesn’t make the world a better place.

    As to this:

    scab is not a personal trait it is a political viewpoint

    So what? It is still talking about the person making the comments, not about the substance of the comments themselves.

    If I disagree with something Lee Rhiannon says then calling her a ‘commie’ is an ad hominem because it’s about her, not about what she says. I know people have done this fairly often here, so go ahead and feel free to make as big deal out of it as you see fit.

    I do appreciate that catmomma was trying to illustrate her thinking on why Tingle might have been making the comments she did, and I wouldn’t have had an issue if it were phrased as Tingle being concerned for her ongoing employment as illustrated by breaking the earlier strike, for example. But “increasingly fat, scabby arse” (with or without a pointless “I’m not really being offensive” ‘k’) is not such an explanation.

  21. Jackol, scab is not a personal trait it is a political viewpoint. In the context of a journalist for the AFR attacking the Labor party it is no more colourful than many other words and the response to it has been disproportionate, particularly in light of numerous ad hominem attacks which do not exercise you at all.

    For fuck’s sake. The term used was not “scab”, but “fat scabby arse”. You really do need to stop lying about this.

  22. BC
    Without knowing a lot about his views they seem to be what might be called technocratic a la Renzi.
    The general approach would be institutional reform st nstional and EU levels.

  23. Boerwar
    Shorten was the right choice. Albo “Fighting Tories.It’s What I Do” was what I wanted but brawling is crystal meth for Abbott the biffo addict. Shorten’s ‘konfrontasi’ avoidance drove Abbott bonkers due to the withdrawal symptoms, well even more bonkers. So much so even the Coalition thought so.

  24. bemused
    I know of where only a few who fled DHS have wound up employed. My impressions from contact I had with DHS when I was acting Area Manager over a number of years was that there was no one left there who had the faintest notion about either clinical services or the NGOs doing rehabilitation.
    Content free management I believe it’s called. All the rage from the Kennett years.

  25. monica lynagh @ #881 Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 4:52 pm

    bemused
    I know of where only a few who fled DHS have wound up employed. My impressions from contact I had with DHS when I was acting Area Manager over a number of years was that there was no one left there who had the faintest notion about either clinical services or the NGOs doing rehabilitation.
    Content free management I believe it’s called. All the rage from the Kennett years.

    So what an irony seeing Kennett purporting to champion Mental Health!

  26. Bemused
    Perhaps but the situation was certainly not helped by the undermining of caucus’ choice of Rudd’s replacement.
    The conspirators acted to replace what they saw as a dysfunctional pm who was leading the party to defeat. Whether they were right or wrong we will never know but subsequent events resulted in 3 years of a very unstable government.
    The current budget’s special tax on banks reminds me of the event that led me to believe that Rudd was unfit for government. The surprise Sunday afternoon announcement of a tax on the “excess” profits of mining companies, when he was unable to explain what this meant but assured Australians that this would solve our fiscal woes AND increase the superannuation levies. Ken Henry’s face showed the problem. For me this was the turning point that said his government was doomed.

  27. Boerwar
    One less sub, plus a discussion about guns and butter would certainly help, but probably not get to grips with one of the central problems in funding for mental health service.
    That is,in the public health sphere, that psychiatric services are never funded properly to address the incidence, mortality and morbidity of psychiatric disorder because you are up against much more powerful health care providers, such as surgery and more appealing service recipients, think children’s hospital/services.
    There is also the mish mash of levels of responsibility from the general practitioner through to the federal level.

  28. [ assign his position to luck is illustrative of just how subtly he has played the Libs. ]
    Interesting aspect to this is that if they assign his run to luck it gives the libs an excuse to not do anything (they are incapable anyway ) and rely on his luck running out.
    Shorten WILL have setbacks over the rest of his time as LOTO, but i doubt they will be fatal and he will cane whovever is Lib leader come the next election.

  29. CTar1 @ #853 Sunday, May 14th, 2017 – 4:23 pm

    Seth Abramson ✔ @SethAbramson
    (2) The FISA court doesn’t convene grand juries, either. I said it before, I’ll say it again: don’t get your legal news from non-attorneys.

    More context required. Otherwise I don’t believe anyone has asserted that a grand jury was convened by or in the FISA court?

    The two things would be unrelated, bar the fact that both reflect negatively on Trump. And certainly Abramson is not asserting that no grand juries have in fact been convened?

  30. oakeshott country @ #886 Sunday, May 14, 2017 at 5:06 pm

    Bemused
    Perhaps but the situation was certainly not helped by the undermining of caucus’ choice of Rudd’s replacement.
    The conspirators acted to replace what they saw as a dysfunctional pm who was leading the party to defeat. Whether they were right or wrong we will never know but subsequent events resulted in 3 years of a very unstable government.
    The current budget’s special tax on banks reminds me of the event that led me to believe that Rudd was unfit for government. The surprise Sunday afternoon announcement of a tax on the “excess” profits of mining companies, when he was unable to explain what this meant but assured Australians that this would solve our fiscal woes AND increase the superannuation levies. Ken Henry’s face showed the problem. For me this was the turning point that said his government was doomed.

    The phrase “out of the frying pan and into the fire” springs to mind.
    I don’t recall that particular event, either forgotten or never seen.
    Australia did poorly out of the mining boom. Whether the exact details of that proposal were right or not, we never got to experience.

  31. Well in fact we did
    A few days later we were told that “excess” profits were profits over the bond rate + 5% (from memory) but if the mining companies underperformed they would be compensated up to the bond rate. This effectively nationalised the mining industry.
    He had to go. Gillard was then left in the invidious situation of making something that would work out of this dog’s breakfast and, it must be said, failed completely.
    This was all easy pickings for a low life like Abbott.

  32. I should add that this surprise was done without consultation with the states on how the tax would effect royalties.

  33. I don’t know why AFR was not on strike (hubby no longer works for Fairfax) but when the strike was announced it was also announced that the AFR was not on strike.

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